* see below for pictures *
My "new" secondhand 50# Firefly Recurve arrived in Australia, sent by Vermonster, who was helpful, prompt and a pleasure to buy from. Thanks Vermonster! After a few days getting my groupings reasonable with the Firefly, I headed out to do some hunting. Several failed stalks on rusa deer and goats saw me vent my frustration on the local rabbit population, using Aussie-made Outback small-game blunts that fly like darts. After feasting on cottontail for dinner, I decided on a hardened goat hunting effort the following morning.
I set my alarm for 5am and awoke reluctantly. At 6am as the horizon showed light I was out of the car, in the bush, full of coffee and keen to send off an arrow. The steep rugged country I was walking through quickly nullified my caffeine-doped muscles and my legs became weights attached to sore feet. But my keenness to send off an arrow continued to swell, and fueled me more than any amount of coffee could at any time of day. I put in a number of failed stalks on goats and deer as the morning grew, and had some comedic failings as a novice hunter, however it wasn't all bad in the end.
Quietly edging along the fringe of a clearing, I found a browsing female rusa deer. Positioned downwind I began a slow stalk to within 30 metres, but was doomed to expose myself in order to make a shot. So I waited for several minutes as this deer grazed into a more stalk-able place, and then I continued my silent creep forward. When I got to 20 metres, without appropriately declaring its arrival a huge billy goat ambled carelessly and noisily out of the scrub on the opposite side of the clearing to me and the doe. The noise the billy goat created spooked the browsing deer, and it moved out into the clearing to take a look. All at once the billy goat smelled me and the deer saw me, and I was caught hopelessly frozen between two perfect targets, yet unable to act without both fleeing. Over an eternity, I bent my knees and dropped to the ground. I failed to remember that wind directions change many times over an eternity, so while I was busy concealing myself ever-so-slowly, the wind swung around and the female deer smelled me and left in a concerned hurry. But now the billy could neither see nor smell me, and he transfigured into a 60" spread target. The stalk was on and I crawled through the grass using a tussock as cover, then crouched up, drew and shot. The horns on this goat were huge. Indeed so huge I hit them, and broke my arrow, while the billy goat walked away, somewhat angry and confused but unhurt.
My second failing I will keep brief but involved ambushing five goats, but not taking a shot at the right time and remaining in ambush. The result was that the goats grazed up to 2m in front of me and began eating the shrub I was hiding behind. As I waited patiently for a shot to avail, a deer browsed in to the area, smelled me, shouted a warning to the goats. The potential drained from my painstakingly superb ambush position like so much blood from an exit wound.
Yet not all was lost, and I soon found myself on a ridiculously exposed grassy hill crawling toward four goats browsing upwind below me. I knew I would have to show myself to take a shot, so I got to 20m and nocked an arrow. I focused on the two goats further away, as they would have to run past me to stay with the two leading goats. I stood, showed myself, and all four goats saw me at once. The two leading goats bolted first, away from me, and as the two trailing goats turned to follow I drew and shot from 25m. The young billy I was looking at did not seem to notice the shot, until he dropped 30 seconds after the Outback single-bevel Supreme spiraled right through him. My 50# Firefly recurve has now blessed me with more than a bunny.
I brought the whole beast home (after the epic 5km climb out of the valley I was in!). The skin will become traditional buckskin for a shirt. I cooked up a roast from a hindquarter in the camp oven and it came out quite well, and my guests spoke highly of their meal! What more could one ask for?
Topic: My new Firefly Recurve has a sting (Read 659 times)
